Power market update: December 2018

AThe all India peak demand touched 163GW on 28th December 2018 registering 7 per cent increase over demand in December’17 as per the statistics issued by NLDC. The energy supplied at 1,03,004MU in December’18 increased 6 per cent over 97,348MU supplied in December’17.

The electricity market at IEX– the Day Ahead- Market (DAM) and Term Ahead-Market (TAM) combined traded 3,156MU in December’18 is almost at par with 3,186MU traded in December’17.

On the year to date basis, the electricity market at IEX traded 42,304MU over 35,349MU traded in same period last fiscal registering growth of 20 per cent.

Day-Ahead Market (DAM)
The Day-Ahead Market traded 3,059MU almost at par with the volume traded in December’17. While on the year to date basis, the DAM traded 40,632MU over 34,185MU traded in the same period last fiscal registering growth of 19 per cent.

On a daily average basis, about 99MU were traded in December’18. The average Market Clearing Price (MCP) was 3.30 per while MCP during different time-periods of the month was:

• Morning (07:00 to 10:00 Hrs): 4.14 per unit
• Day (11:00 to 17:00 Hrs): 3.47 per unit
• Evening peak (18:00 to 23:00 Hrs): 3.85 per unit
• Night (01-06 Hrs and 24 Hrs): 2.19 per unit

Average MCP in December’18 registered 10 per cent increase on YOY basis and 8 per cent decline on MOM basis mainly on account of winter season leading to subdued demand for power particularly in the northern and western states.

‘One nation, one price’ was realised for 23 days. The Day-Ahead Market experienced transmission congestion of 2.6 per cent mainly in the import towards southern region. On a daily average basis, 682 participants are traded in the market during the month.

Term-Ahead Market (TAM)
The Term-Ahead Market traded 97MU in December’18 registering 25 per cent increase over December’17. While on the year to date basis, the TAM traded 1,672MU over 1,164MU traded in same period last fiscal registering growth of 44 per cent.

Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) market
A total of 3,83,873RECs were cleared in the REC trading session held on wednesday, 26 December, 2018 almost at par with trade in November’17. The key highlights of the trading session are as below:

• The clearing price for solar REC market at 1,450 per REC saw increase of 32 per cent over 1101 per REC price in November’18
• The clearing price for non-solar market at 1,320 per REC saw 5 per cent increase over price of 1,252 per REC in November’18
• Both non-solar and solar REC saw reversal in demand-supply situation with the buy bids exceeding the sell bids
• The DISCOMs were the major buyers in the session followed by captive users’ companies and open access consumers.

On a year to date basis, IEX has cumulatively traded 63.18 lakh RECs over 66.77 lakh RECs, traded in the same period. The demand for RECs from the obligated entities has been there, however, due to exhaustion of the inventory, the market has a not seen much vibrancy this year. The situation clearly signals the need for new REC based capacity.